Global warming strikes again...

[El_Machinae]

Not true yet no one simply says the easy solution.

I betcha your solution involves ensuring that the poor stay poorer than you.

 

[Enginseer]

I betcha your solution involves ensuring that the poor stay poorer than you.

Strawman statement. I don't have a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[El_Machinae]

Sorry, I thought you were proposing the 'easy solution'. Misread your post.

But it's clear you're not attending the discussion. You also deny there's a problem.

Not sure what to do about that.

Not sure why you think you should be allowed to emit more CO2 than most of the people on the planet do, when the vast majority of informed scientists say that it is causing problems.

Sense of entitlement, coupled with the lack of curiosity, I guess

 

[Enginseer]

But it's clear you're not attending the discussion. You also deny there's a problem.

Not sure why you think you should be allowed to emit more CO2 than most of the people on the planet do, when the vast majority of informed scientists say that it is causing problems.

Sense of entitlement, coupled with the lack of curiosity, I guess

Beats me I got quoted from a weeks-old post. I don't deny there's a problem, I accept that it does not exist.

Not sure why I should be restricted to less CO2 than most of the people because the vast majority of people don't just say "man i should turn off the ac in this hot weather because the ac will make it hotter in the future later!" Why should I have to turn off my AC then? I should be able to emit more CO2 then because the weather is hot.

Now if someone offered me an AC that doesn't produce any CO2 at the same price of an AC that produce CO2, I'll be happy to buy one to support the green cause.

It's not entitlement, it's cost vs benefits and no one offers a solution where you have direct benefits, but horoscopic cost (instead it is all direct cost and mostly horoscopic benefits). If Solar Energy cost less than Oil Energy, wtf i love solar now. But to tell me I should buy a more-expensive solar energy than cheap Oil energy to save the environment, then you're just making the "poor poorer".

 

[El_Machinae]

Not sure why I should be restricted to less CO2 than most of the people because the vast majority of people ...

Actually, you do know. Because you know that excessive emissions can cause problems, mainly on people who emit less than you do.

You know why you shouldn't emit more than them. It's because we're worried about global warming causing ecological damage.

You just don't believe it. You just think you're entitled to emit more CO2 than they do.

 

[El_Machinae]

Didn't see your edit. The problem you propose would be fixed by a proper carbon tax. It's one of the solutions that's been proposed for years and years.

 

[FriendlyFire]

It's not entitlement, it's cost vs benefits and no one offers a solution where you have direct benefits, but horoscopic cost (instead it is all direct cost and mostly horoscopic benefits)

Humans are generally illogical creatures though, such as California ground water usage for water thirsty agricultural crops, or the fight between fisherman and farmers
I hope humanity will be able to muddle its way through the coming crisis, scientific break though might be what will save us from ourselves.

 

[Enginseer]

Didn't see your edit. The problem you propose would be fixed by a proper carbon tax. It's one of the solutions that's been proposed for years and years.

lol punishing the poor for using a cheaper alternative. It's been proposed for years and years but doesn't work.

Let's say:

• I can pay $10/month for paying energy from coal.
• I can pay $12/month for paying energy from solar.

Wait, now there's a carbon tax to make people choose to pay solar.

• I can pay $12/month for paying energy from coal.
• I can pay $12/month for paying energy from solar.

Either way, I'm forced to pay $2 more because of social pressures(from the people to the government) and not economic incentives. Guess I'll vote no on this carbon tax.

Wait why don't the carbon tax subsidize solar cost then so...

• I can pay $12/month for paying energy from coal.
• I can pay $10/month for paying energy from solar.

wtf i love solar now. Now if only I can get that passed... oh wait this interest group(totally not from the coal industry, i swear) blocks my path and I'm not going to open that can of worms since interest groups are essentially social pressures vs social pressures vs social pressures for economic interests.

So what can you do ultimately at the end? Just keep investing in solar technology and hope the cost can get cheaper and cheaper.

Humans are generally illogical creatures though, such as California ground water usage for water thirsty agricultural crops, or the fight between fisherman and farmers
I hope humanity will be able to muddle its way through the coming crisis, scientific break though might be what will save us from ourselves.

Exactly what I'm hoping for. Bravo.

 

[Lexicus]

Either way, I'm forced to pay $2 more because of social pressures(from the people to the government) and not economic incentives. Guess I'll vote no on this carbon tax.

The price of the coal is so low because it is subsidized. You don't care about coal subsidies though because your argument isn't really based on economics, it's based on what's maximally convenient for you.

You just don't believe it. You just think you're entitled to emit more CO2 than they do.

Serious question, El Mach, at what point would you be willing to deprive climate deniers of political rights? Let's say that the higher-climate-sensitivity outcomes turn out to be correct, and that the only chance to take serious action is if we stop ten million climate change deniers from voting. Would it be ethically justified to lock them up in prison camps if doing so would allow us to save 500 million lives in the future? A billion lives?

 

[El_Machinae]

lol punishing the poor for using a cheaper alternative. It's been proposed for years and years but doesn't work.

Whether a carbon tax 'hurts the poor' is a function of how it's spent*. The tax itself gets revenue from collecting more from those who consume more than average. There really are solutions to the mainstream good concerns.

As an aside, the emission of carbon taxes is what's truly going to hurt the poor. I can understand why you'd want AC, I truly do. Everyone does. It's the more wasteful consumption that's the low-hanging fruit. It's causing damage, and it also shrinks the window we have available for responding in time.

We've known for 20 years that we needed to change the direction of carbon emissions, but we've chosen not to. Larger houses. Larger vehicles. More meat. This consumption didn't 'help the poor', but it aggravated it. A carbon tax isn't unwarranted. People who emit more are consuming more of a limited resource.

If four farms were straddling an aquifer, and one farm was pulling out enough water such that all the wells were being lowered ... then charging that farm for their excess consumption (compensating the other farms) is appropriate. And it's also fair for the other farms to yowl in protest.

*a direct rebate most obviously compensates the poor, since you earn by being lower than average.
*a portion of the dollars should be ear-marked towards projects that only a government can do well - certain types of research, certain types of infrastructure. Your own post twice called for more spending (subsidies on solar, and more solar research), so a carbon tax can be the revenue for that.

 

[Angst]

yet they told me california was gonna sink into the ocean by 2010 if all nations dont start going solar and wind power see u in 12 years

You don't even know what I'm referring to lol. It's not that the world will end in 12 years, nor that California will sink beneath the sea. The issue is that in 12 years we'll have added so much to the climate that certain things will be irreversible to a dark degree. This was massive news published about half a week ago I think. But I'm not surprised you haven't read it, from your disposition.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

We have 12 years to ensure that there's no massive destruction down the line, where we're talking a couple of decades before it sets in.

Also I have no idea what you're talking about in regards to California.

 

[Silurian]

Serious question, El Mach, at what point would you be willing to deprive climate deniers of political rights? Let's say that the higher-climate-sensitivity outcomes turn out to be correct, and that the only chance to take serious action is if we stop ten million climate change deniers from voting. Would it be ethically justified to lock them up in prison camps if doing so would allow us to save 500 million lives in the future? A billion lives?

If you start locking up people because they believe stupid things where will you stop.

I would not be surprised if a Nuremberg style court is set up to prosecute people who have financed and facilitated climate change denial.

 

[Lexicus]

If you start locking up people because they believe stupid things where will you stop.

I don't know, but I also don't know what we're supposed to do when the world is going to be destroyed and there are a bunch of people who are like "destroy it faster!"

 

[Broken_Erika]

.........................

 

[Hrothbern]

We all could know it was going to happen since many, many years.
Here a graph of an old confidential report of 1982 of Exxon, predicting pretty good what was going to happen with temperature and CO2.
Do note it is not from a spreadsheet plot but drawn on graph paper
Around the same time Shell did a similar estimate as part of a much wider and public report.
Here the article with the graph and links to sources: https://www.theguardian.com/environ...d-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings

 

[Bootstoots]

We all could know it was going to happen since many, many years.
Here a graph of an old confidential report of 1982 of Exxon, predicting pretty good what was going to happen with temperature and CO2.
Do note it is not from a spreadsheet plot but drawn on graph paper
Around the same time Shell did a similar estimate as part of a much wider and public report.
Here the article with the graph and links to sources: https://www.theguardian.com/environ...d-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings

View attachment 506142

The predictions are almost spot-on, if anything actually slightly worse than reality.

CO2 concentrations for 2017:
Exxon prediction --> 415 ppm
Reality --> 407 ppm

Warming for 2017:
Exxon prediction --> 0.9 C above 1980*
Reality --> 0.7 C above 1980* (1.0 C above preindustrial)

*9-year average centered on 1980.

It's pretty remarkable that the very simple treatments of climate in models from the early 1980s remain fairly accurate to this day wrt global temperature increase. The general shape of how things have evolved over the last 35 years, compared to what was predicted then vs. now, is that the temperature increases have been slightly slower than expected but that the impacts for any given amount of warming are quite a bit larger. That's really the takeaway from the 1.5 C report: a whole lot goes wrong even at +2 C, and we're slated to shoot well past that, so we need to rein in carbon emissions even faster than previously thought despite the fact that the amount of warming might be fractionally lower than expected in AR1 back in 1988.

 

[onejayhawk]

You are stretching things past the breaking point. The graph does not give 0.9° for 2017. It's a range from over 0.90° - 1.20°. That is not particularly close to 0.7° which would be about 1996-2003. The slope of the tangent is 0.4 degrees per decade, curved upward. Your actual number is 0.7°/37 years = 1.9 degrees per decade, not even half.

J

 

[CKS]

It doesn't give a range. The top curve is the carbon dioxide, the bottom curve is the temperature increase.

 

[Silurian]

You are stretching things past the breaking point. The graph does not give 0.9° for 2017. It's a range from over 0.90° - 1.20°. That is not particularly close to 0.7° which would be about 1996-2003. The slope of the tangent is 0.4 degrees per decade, curved upward. Your actual number is 0.7°/37 years = 1.9 degrees per decade, not even half.

J

Well if you look at 0.8° on the right hand temperature scale and run your eye across the dots till it hits the line marked "most probable temperature increase", it looks to me that that point is about 3/4 of the way from 2000 to 2020. So it looks to me that Exxon predicted an increase of 0.8° for 2017.

Obviously you do not understand the graph, there is a temperature increase (right hand scale) and a CO2 concentration ppm (left scale). There are different lines that should be used with each vertical axis. Obviously most people would realise that there was existing CO2 in the atmosphere, if they knew anything about the atmosphere, so that graph would not start from zero and temperature increase starts from zero; but for people who do not know this there are helpful arrows pointing at the correct axis too use.

 

[onejayhawk]

I understand the tangent slope of the temperature curve. It is more than twice observed data and the curve is increasing. Tell me otherwise.

J